


Late

by DeckofDragons



Series: Halloween 2020 [4]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Bombinomicon is there and is kind of an asshole, I'm only person in the fandom who ships this, M/M, Pyro's a kind soul, halloween fic, moping, whatever though rarepair hell is where I've resided for a long time with this ship and many others
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27117076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeckofDragons/pseuds/DeckofDragons
Summary: Merasmus is late for Halloween month. Pyro goes looking for him.
Relationships: Pyro/Merasmus
Series: Halloween 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946983
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	Late

It was finally October, Halloween month as some thought of it, which meant Merasmus should come around any day to mess with them and change up their battles with magic and stuff. But… it was two weeks in and he hadn’t even so much as shown up yet. He’d been late a few times before but never _that_ late.

The rest of the team either seemed pleased by this or didn’t show any signs of caring. Pyro however _did_ care. Merasmus made things fun and Pyro had always liked him. And the magic he always brought with him was the best; fireballs and everyone getting a chance to turn invisible, the cute little skeletons dudes and everything else never failed be awesome. So… where was he and why hadn’t he shown up yet?

“I don’t know,” Soldier said with a shrug when Pyro brought that question to him. As Merasmus’ former roommate he’d been the most obvious person to ask first. “Maybe he took the coward’s way out and gave up.” Hopefully not, Halloween was bound to be less fun without him.

The next most obvious person to ask was Spy because he tended to know a lot about everyone, it was his job after all. But… “Nope, I’ve no clue where he is,” was his answer as he swirled his wine in one hand, not even deigning to look up from his book. “Nor do I care to know because that would mean he came back to bother us. I’ve been enjoying not having him around for once.”

“Uh… you’re right, it is past time for him to show up, huh?” was Miss Pauling’s answer upon Pyro bringing the question to her. “I wonder why he hasn’t yet. I could probably find him if I really wanted to but…” she looked down at her desk and all the messy paperwork scattered all over it, “I’m kind of busy. Sorry Pyro, I’m sure he’ll show up any day now though so try to be just a little more patient.”

Pyro was tired of being patient though. He wanted proper Halloween and he wanted it now. … Maybe he could just find Merasmus himself. “Where does he live?”

Pauling raised an eyebrow at him. “I suppose I can give you that but how do you plan on getting down there?”

“I’ll have someone drive me.” This job paid more than well enough to pay someone to drive him around for a day or two if no one on the team wanted to come with him.

“All right I guess.” She turned to start typing something into the computer. “Wait until the weekend to go though and come back before battle starts on Monday. And don’t let the Administrator know, she doesn’t like how lax am I with you guys sometimes.”

Pyro nodded his assent; he hadn’t been planning to let the Administrator know anything about it anyway. And even though now that the idea had occurred to him, he was already rearing and ready to go, he could wait a couple more days. Maybe Merasmus would even show up in that time, rendering the trip unnecessary. One could only hope.

***

“You really going to let them win this year?” the Bombinomicon taunted for the umpteenth time as Merasmus strode into the library. He’d been expecting it but that didn’t make it any less annoying. “You _always_ go down there to harass them around Halloween by not going this year, you’re admitting defeat, do you really want that?”

No but he never won no matter what he did and only ever wracked up more debt with his schemes. So he’d made the decision that he wasn’t going this year because what was the point? He wouldn’t accomplish anything but annoying and inconveniencing the mercs for however long he stuck around. He had better things to be doing with his time like… like… just other better things.

With a huff, he strode over to put the book in his hands back in its proper place.

“Of all the times for you to have one of your moping spells, why’d it have to be now?” the Bombinomicon continued because not replying encouraged him about as much as replying did.

“I’m not moping.” He was a powerful evil wizard and powerful evil wizards did _not_ mope.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure you’re moping. And it’s really annoying because we should be _doing things_ right now but we’re _not_ because you’re moping around the castle feeling sorry for yourself again.”

Biting back an angry retort, Merasmus snatched the book he’d come in here for off the shelf and started for the exit.

“And now you’re going to run away like a…”

Merasmus slammed the door shut behind him, cutting off whatever insult the Bombinomicon had been about to throw at him. He really needed to do something about that damn book one of these days. Maybe he should do it now that he was thinking about it again because he’d been meaning to for a while. … He wasn’t in the mood though so he’d do it later, next time he needed to go into the library for sure… maybe.

Before he could go up more than a few steps to his room a hearty knock came from his front door. It was either another ding-dong-ditch from the teens that lived in the nearby town, a door-to-door salesman, or if he was _really_ lucky another religious nutjob here to try to banish or convert him to whatever brand of religion they were peddling. In case it was one of the latter two, he placed his book down on the coffee table and put on his best evil smile as he strode over to answer it.

It was the red Pyro. Lifting a hand in a wave he muttered what sounded like a “Hello,” through his mask.

Merasmus was so surprised to find one of the mercs at his door it took him a few seconds to find his voice. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s Halloween month but you haven’t shown up yet so I came to check on you. Are you okay?”

“What?” Merasmus asked because there was no way that was actually what Pyro had said.

But Pyro repeated himself, speaking slower and clearer. He really had come all the way out here to check on Merasmus because he hadn’t shown up to bother the mercs. But… shouldn’t he have been pleased about that?

“You’ve never been this late before,” Pyro continued, still speaking in a way that made it easier to hear him through the mask. “So I thought something must be wrong. Like maybe the Mafia finally caught you and I’d have to go burn them down to save you. I’m glad that’s not the case. But are you okay? I lose track of time sometimes too so I understand if that’s why you’re so late.”

“I uh… I’m fine. I’m not going down there to bother you this year. I have better things to be spending my time on than wasting it trying to kill a bunch of mercenaries who can’t even die to begin with.” He was about to slam the door shut but the way Pyro’s entire body seemed to sag with disappointment stopped him.

Pyro mumbled something that his mask rendered unintelligible.

“What?”

“But Halloween!” he repeated. “It won’t be the same without you.”

How was Merasmus even supposed to respond to that? He’d never had anyone be disappointed he hadn’t shown up to bother them before. Heck, he’d never had anyone show up at his door to ask him if he was okay before either. It was weird but… he kind of liked it?

“Are you sure you don’t want to come? What if I help you? You give me all the magics and I’ll rain down pretty fire everywhere.”

“You’d really join my side and attack your teammates?” His quarrel was mostly with Soldier after all.

Pyro nodded. “They’d understand. _Or_ you could join our team and give us magic to attack the BLUs. … Or if you’d rather not that’s fine too…” he trailed off to say a bit more that was really only unintelligible mumbling as he dropped his hands to hand limply by his side. It was pretty dang clear he wanted Merasmus to do his usual Halloween thing.

If it were anyone other than Pyro, Merasmus wouldn’t still given an instant ‘no’. But he’d always been intrigued by Pyro and the mystery that shrouded him. And well Pyro had come all the way out here to ‘check on him’ which no one had ever done for him before so… “Fine, as long as you agree to be my ally, I’ll return.” That should make it more interesting and might result in him winning for once, whatever that might mean when neither side’s people would stay dead if killed.

Pyro clapped and… hugged him. Thankfully it was brief enough that Merasmus didn’t have time to even try to respond to it because what the fuck even? Pulling back, Pyro grabbed his wrist and tugged him out the door. “Let’s go, it’ll be fun.”

Well, it’d certainly be better than not moping around his castle was. So maybe it would be fun.


End file.
